Note 10 — THE LIFE OF JUVENAL, BY WILLIAM GIFFORD, ESQ.

This Satire is referred by the critics to the reign of Trajan, because Marius, whose trial took place under that prince, is mentioned in it. I have attributed it to an earlier period; principally moved by the consideration that it presents a faithful copy of the state of Rome and the conquered provinces under Nero, and which could scarcely have been given in such vivid colors after the original had ceased to affect the mind. What Rome was under Domitian, may be seen in the second Satire, and the difference, which has not been sufficiently attended to, is striking in the extreme. I would observe too, that Juvenal speaks here of the crimes of Marius—they might be, and probably were, committed long before his condemnation; but under Domitian it was scarcely safe to attempt bringing such gigantic peculators to justice. Add to this, that the other culprits mentioned in it are all of them prior to that prince; nay, one of them, Capito, was tried so early as the beginning of Nero's reign. The insertion of Marius, however (which might be an after-thought), forms a main argument with Dodwell for the very late date of this Satire; he observes that it had escaped Lipsius and Salmasius; and boasts of it as "longe certissimum," etc. 156.